


Terrible Nights

by healermalfoy



Category: The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drunkenness, F/F, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-04 22:12:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3092765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/healermalfoy/pseuds/healermalfoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She knows what it sounds like, even to her own ears. It sounds like somebody who won’t use past tense for the dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Terrible Nights

**Author's Note:**

> Hoooooly crap, I started writing this like, a bajillion years ago, ditched it, and dug it back up only recently. Anyway, this is quite literally the first fic I've ever finished writing, so I guess I'm kind of proud? Just for at least finishing it? Because I have issues with starting projects and just abandoning 'em halfway through like little kittens in the rain. 
> 
> Anyway, this thingy was loosely inspired by the song "Some Nights" by fun., which I highly recommend you listen to either while or after you read this, because it describes the fic almost perfectly and also it's just really great music.

Annabeth picks on the second ring. Piper knows she hasn’t deleted her number yet because her voice comes out tight. “Hello.”

“Mm, fuck you,” Piper greets. She’s got her head curled up against the car window. Her eyes are closed.

There’s a brief silence, and Piper almost thinks she’s hung up. “You’re drunk,” she finally says.

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. Where are you?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Piper drawls, “Remember, Annababes? I don’t matter. You said so yourself. So let’s talk about  _you_.” She hopes the jab hurts. Stings, at least, because it’s really not fair for Piper to do all the hurting for the two of them. But when Annabeth speaks again, there isn’t even a hint of emotion.

“Look, Piper, we called it quits months ago. I’ve moved on. It’s time you do, too. I’m not a therapist hotline.”

“You still picked up,” Piper says. “It’s two in the morning, you’re not a therapist hotline, and you still picked up. What does that say about you?” She tries to say it like a challenge, but it doesn’t seem to be received that way.

“Where are you?” Annabeth asks again, almost resigned. Like Piper is a chore, or a guilty child she can’t be bothered to stay angry at. Piper feels something spike in the pit of her stomach, hot and heavy, and she doesn’t realize it’s not just an emotion until the vomit is already at the back of her throat, and she barely manages to throw open the car door and bend over before it’s spilling out of her, bile and alcohol and a lot of shitty feelings that make her feel just that—shitty. She coughs and hacks violently, her body convulsing without shame. The parking lot is empty, and when she’s finally gotten the worst of it out of her system, every breath she forces out echoes emptily.

Faintly, she thinks she can hear Annabeth’s voice coming from out of the phone, small and indiscernible. She doesn’t care. Let her worry. Let her think she’s driving down a highway with a beer in hand, made reckless from a heartbreak neither of them can deny. Piper lifts the phone and stares, her thumb lingering over the End Call button, only to find she can’t do it. She can’t push down. Can’t be the one to leave first, even now.

“Oh my goodness, are you alright?”

Piper flicks her gaze up to match face with voice and blinks.

A small, mousy girl with dark skin and golden hair is rushing towards her from the other side of the parking lot, eyebrows knit together in concern and stuttering along awkwardly on metallic heels.

“Don’t worry, I’m not driving,” Piper answers, a little too loudly. Annabeth is still speaking through the phone, her voice muffled as Piper covers the speakers with her hand, but not before she catches the words _answer me_ and _fucking immature_. “Just sitting in my car to sober up.”

“Oh. Okay.” She flashes Piper a relieved smile, and for a moment, she kind of reminds Piper of sunshine—bright and yellow and warm. Annabeth’s stopped talking, but she hasn’t ended the call, either.

“Try walking heel to toe,” Piper finally says, after a solid ten seconds have ticked past and it’s clear the girl isn’t budging.

Sunshine looks startled. “What?”

Piper nods at her shoes, “You were walking funny in those heels. It might help if you bring your heel down first and then your toe. Take smaller steps, too. I don’t think you even broke into them properly.”

“Oh,” she mumbles shyly, “Yeah, this is my first time wearing these. I don’t really wear heels in general, actually. Don’t like them. I just figured I’d look a bit silly walking into a nightclub as fancy as SPQR with flats on.” She offers Piper a small, dimpled smile. “I can’t even feel my left foot anymore.”

“I can imagine,” Piper retorts, and she returns the smile with something that probably comes off looking more like a grimace. “It’s better in the parking lot, though, isn’t it? Less slippery floors. Better lighting.”

Piper’s phone suddenly lights up, beeping softly as Annabeth hangs up and her contact icon disappears.

“So you’ll be alright?”

Piper nods slowly without looking up. “Yeah, I think so.”

“You think so? That still doesn’t sound very good,” Sunshine frowns, “I think you can park overnight here. If you’d like, I could hail a taxi for you? I could even drive you back myself, if you trust me enough, I live close by, so…”

Piper considers it for a second, maybe two. It’d be a nice slap to the face, certainly, calling Annabeth and telling her she had a pretty girl take her home. Maybe wiggle a sweater or two out of Sunshine to show off the next time Percy or Jason invite them over to watch a movie. Hell, Piper’s conscious is so jaded right now, she even thinks about tugging the girl to bed with her. (She could do it—she’s Piper McLean, everybody wants a piece of her, sexuality be damned.) Text Annabeth to pick up that old shirt she’d left behind the morning after, answer the door with sex hair and a bruised neck, hand over the shirt and smile, say, “I don’t need it anymore,” even if it’s a lie.

She almost says yes.

“That’s nice of you.” Piper wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “But it’s okay. I’m waiting for someone.”

“Your designated driver?”

Piper pauses. “I guess you could call her that.”

Sunshine nods slowly. “I’m glad you’ve got somebody looking after you like that.”

“Hah, I am, too. But I think she’s far from it,” and no, it’s not bitterness coating her words, she swear it’s not, just plain vanilla in the mouth of somebody used to sprinkles. “She probably hates taking care of me these days, just does it out of obligation.”

Piper looks up to find Sunshine staring at her, a small crease between her brows. “Well, don’t you take care of her in return? Isn’t that what friends do?” She finally asks, and Piper likes how her voice stretches around that word, _friends_.

Piper thinks about every trip to the museum she weaseled out of, pretending to not see the disappoint on Annabeth’s face, every unimportant call she made, regardless of what god forsaken time it was, how Annabeth always answered—2:00 AM crying sessions, 3:00 AM drunk ranting sessions, 4:00 AM Can-You-Come-Over-And-Make-Me-Soup-Right-Now-Because-I’m-Cramping-And-Bleeding-Emotions request sessions. Every mistake she brushed off, every secret she kept, every insecurity she folded away. Piper thinks about all of that and reverses the roles, counts how many scenarios would be played out the same. Little to none, probably.

“I tried,” Piper says, “but I don’t think I knew how to.”

“But are you to blame?”

“No,” comes the immediate reply. The word rushes out a little too defensively, but she can’t help it. “It’s not like I was demanding to be taken care of. If anything, I had no idea how much of a burden I’d become until it was too late. I was never even given a chance to fix everything. The other person—she was complete shit at communication, alright, just kept saying it was fine, she was fine, everything was fine, until bam, big ass argument on a fucking Ferris wheel, something about me being an ignorant asshole, and before you know it, she’s moved out and you’re fifty shades of fucked.” Piper pauses, and flicks her eyes up at Sunshine, who seems mildly scandalized by the sudden influx of profanity. “Sorry,” she adds, “I swear when I’m mad.”

“Oh, no, that’s perfectly alright,” Sunshine reassures, before pausing. “I’m obviously unfamiliar with your relationship with your designated driver, but…” She gives a small shrug, “From what it looks like, it doesn’t seem like you’re fifty shades of…I mean, for one thing, she wouldn’t be coming here to drive you home if she really didn’t care about you, right? Regardless of obligation. She could just tell you to hail a taxi or something.”

“I never said she was coming,” Piper says. “I just said I’m waiting for her.”

Sunshine looks dumbfounded. “Which means you believe that she’ll come, right?”

Piper doesn’t answer. “Hey,” she says instead, “I never got your name.”

“Hazel.”

“I'm Piper.”

Hazel nods. “I like it. Fitting.”

Piper raises a brow. “Fitting?”

Another nod. “You don’t think so?”

While Piper contemplates on it, Hazel checks the watch on her wrist, registers the time, and makes a face. She's still for a while, before seeming to be struck with an idea, and rummages around her purse to produce a pen and crumpled receipt. Scribbling something on the back, she hands it over to Piper. “Hey, I’m really sorry, but I have to go. Call me if your designated driver can’t make it or something, alright?”

Piper stares at the number. “You know, for a stranger, you’re awfully concerned about me,” she comments off-handedly.

Hazel hesitates at this, before finally saying, “My stepsister, Bianca. She died in a car accident. The person who hit her was driving under the influence.”

Piper feels like hitting herself with a brick. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Hazel says, and she somehow manages to even sound like she means it. “But seriously, I need to go. I’ll see you around, then, Piper?”

“Yeah. See you.”

And then she’s gone. Piper watches her walk off, steadier now, taking smaller steps. Walking heel to toe. She feels inexplicably proud. Alone now, Hazel’s words dance across her mind like a broken record. _You believe that she’ll come, right?_

And nope. _Nope_. She doesn’t want to deal with questions like that, not here, not now. She doesn't want to contemplate if the number of kisses she’s given to Annabeth accumulated are enough to buy her a ride back home, doesn’t want to see if she can use expired memories of groggy mornings and tangled sheets to make Annabeth give two shits about her again, not because it’s her responsibility, but because hell, she was her _girlfriend_. The one she almost _married_. The girl who was almost the _one_. She doesn’t want to deal with questions like that. Not here, not now, not ever, and by the way things are turning out, she just might get away with the entire ordeal. It’s been twelve minutes, and Annabeth is nowhere in sight—

The sound of footsteps cuts through her thoughts and even though it’s quiet, she can’t help but feel like some part of her brain is shrieking bloody murder when she drags her gaze across the parking lot to rest on yellow and gray, because fuck, who else would it be?

The sight of Annabeth alone makes Piper’s blood buzz. She hasn’t seen her since she’d driven off two months ago in her silver Acura, her trunk filled with a suitcase full of things that were suddenly hers and not theirs, old sweatshirts and architecture posters and half of Piper’s thrice-damned heart. There were always the pictures to scroll through at three in the morning, of course, but this—this is different. This is _Annabeth,_ standing less than twenty yards away from her, with circles under her eyes and her hair half-tucked in an oversized Yankees sweatshirt, skin and bones, scars and stars, Annabeth fucking Chase, and Piper finds herself grasping for words she cannot find and emotions she cannot feel. She reaches for anger and finds only love, searches for joy and finds only hurt.

Silently, Annabeth walks over to Piper, arms folded over one another, stopping just short of ten feet. Doesn’t say anything.

It’s after a good minute before Piper finally greets, “Hey, Annababes. Glad you could make it.”

 “Give me the keys,” Annabeth says, steely and flat and quick. (Like maybe if she gets her words out fast enough, there won’t be any time for emotions to latch on. The thought pisses Piper off, but also makes her heart curl a little with…something. She refuses to give it a name.)

Silently, Piper obliges, fishing her car keys out from her purse and tossing it to her in a high arc. Her throat has all but clogged itself up, taken every smart comment Piper’s prepared beforehand to hurl at her and shredded it into a million pieces, because _what the fuck?_ At what point did Piper think she could look at Annabeth and still snark with all the wit of a twelve-year-old?

Annabeth catches the keys without batting a single eyelash, and if she sees the keychain—custom-made with a picture of Piper and Annabeth preserved in plastic from last Christmas, smiling with arms tucked around one another—she doesn’t show it. Probably because there just isn’t anything to show in Annabeth’s case. She’s already moved on, and this is just a loose end to tie up, driving your drunk ex home because when was she capable of doing anything without you and your training wheel love?

Piper decides not to treat that thought too seriously. She probably can’t handle _anything_ serious right now, not with all this alcohol running through her veins and a bad idea with sun hair and moon eyes sitting next to her.

Annabeth pulls out of the lot quickly enough, and Piper blinks once, twice, before they’re on the road.

There are no words exchanged.

Piper doesn’t know how to feel. What had she been expecting? A fight in the parking lot? A yelling match? An apology wrapped and sealed with a kiss?

No.

Tense silence and passive-aggressive bullshit and never just spitting it out, never exploding, never actively giving a _flying fuck about anything_. Always shoving it in, stamping it out, holding it back until all hell breaks loose and Piper is left bewildered and confused and angry, hating herself for not catching everything sooner.

She’d been expecting just this. She just hadn’t been hoping for it.

 _Same as ever, I see,_ Piper thinks haughtily.

“What do you mean?” Annabeth says, keeping her eyes on the road, and Piper’s pretty sure her mouth, too watered down by the alcohol, is saying things meant for her brain again.

“You.” Piper makes some vague hand gesture. “You’re still the same. Still a fucking idiot.”

“Are we really going to discuss who the _fucking idiot_ here is?” Annabeth says, mimicking Piper’s profanity with all the disapproval of a seventy-five year old lady. Jesus fuck.

“Oh, get off your high horse,” Piper snaps, “At least I’m not afraid of feelings. At least I made an effort.”

“I don’t know, Piper, it didn’t really sound like you exercised any effort getting wasted tonight,” Annabeth retorts, but her voice is still even and low and her hands aren’t trembling yet, so Piper’s not satisfied. She’s done with this, she wants blood. She wants to make Annabeth feel the pain that hasn’t left her since they split, wants to devastate her and break her, because fuck you too, alright, you can’t just change the rules overnight and walk out of this relationship like it didn’t mean anything.

But there is no blood. There is no pain, no devastation, and in the flickering city lights that shift across Annabeth’s face, she looks perfectly whole. She’s okay, and Piper is so, _so_ not. The one who cares the most always loses.

They drive the rest of the way in silence, with Piper spending most of it trying to figure out ways to break it. She still is, in fact, when Annabeth pulls up in front of Piper’s apartment complex and kills the engine. “You can get up the stairs alone?” Annabeth asks. What little emotion there was behind her voice has long receded back into its infuriating shell, and Piper’s throat pulses, hot and heavy.

“Yeah,” Piper says, irritable all over again. She reaches for her purse, and without thinking too much about it, leans over to pull her keys out from the ignition, fingers ghosting over Annabeth’s thigh in the process. She barely catches it, because Annabeth’s always been so quiet about everything, but it’s unmistakable: an almost inaudible intake of air, sharp and irregular. And it shouldn’t matter, really, people breathe all the fucking time, alright, but Piper knows affection when she sees it. Knows if Annabeth truly didn’t give a fuck about Piper, she wouldn’t breathe under her touch. Piper stops, and for a moment, they’re frozen like that—Piper leaned over, one finger looped around her keychain, tight shirt riding up slightly from her outstretched arm to reveal a thin strip of dark skin, and _finally_ , Annabeth’s eyes are on her, all of her, and Piper can see those gray orbs tracing her curves and edges, flickering rapidly from neck to mouth to nose, and it’s like being hit by a truck, the epiphany that expands so quickly Piper’s got no room to consider the doubts. It’s stupid, it’s so stupid and there’s a part of Piper that insists she’d imagined it and Annabeth only reacted because she was surprised, sensitive little bunny she is, simple as that, but. _But_. Surprise doesn’t blow gray eyes wide. Alarm doesn’t doesn’t tug down eyelids, draw arched brows together into a frown. _Lust does._

(And something else, but Piper doesn’t name the emotions she’s not comfortable with, doesn’t identify what terrifies her and leaves her on tiptoes.)

It comes tumbling out of the darkest, most fucked up corners of Piper’s brain, so well-hidden even she hadn’t seen it until now, hadn’t realized she’d been waiting for a signal and sign until the flag was already up in the air, the blank shot arching up into the sky.

Before her brain can catch up, Piper is already easing herself onto Annabeth’s lap and cupping her face. Annabeth makes a noise of protest, but it’s too late, too late because Piper’s already closed the distance, prodding Annabeth’s  mouth open with her tongue.

Annabeth immediately goes stiff, and Piper tries her best to take the entity of their entire relationship thus far and condense it into those five seconds, because this is it. This the last ace she’s got up her sleeve, the last time Annabeth will ever be able to look her in the eye and keep at least one side of her wall down. She’s going to sink back into her skin soon enough, however, and Piper knows exactly what happens next, can already see it playing like a movie in her head—Annabeth’ll push her back with a stutter and snap and hiss, shut her out and cut her off like she always does whenever Piper gets a little too close for comfort, wipe her mouth with the sleeve of her sweater and make a mad dash for it the second she’s let go like a baby. In a lot of way, Annabeth is like a baby.

She knows all of this, and only bites harder, sucks harder, because she wants Annabeth to get out of this broken and bruising, wants her to avoid conversation and mirrors for the next week because everywhere she looks, there is Piper imprinted all over her body, scars so deep they’ll have left depressions in her very fucking soul; let her rot. Let her die and revive and die as Piper has, as Piper still is. Let _her_ be the one to call Piper up next time, fucked out and pissed off, sulking in the corner of a parking lot and crying for two hours before she makes the call and converts love ( _love?_ ) into profanity.

If she can’t kiss Annabeth like a lover, she sure as hell can kiss her like an enemy.

So that’s that. They’ll both go down in flames. She waits for repercussion like Persephone waits for the winter, and soon enough, there is it—a cool, soft hand against her shoulder, clenched into a ball around the fabric of Piper’s shirt. Now comes the push.

What she receives in return, however, is a pull.

And just like that, Annabeth is a mechanical robot come to life, surging forward with so much strength and intensity Piper’s jaw goes slack for a second. Without missing a single beat, Annabeth jumps at the opportunity, easily gaining control of the kiss and sending Piper’s back slamming into the wheel, who only feels a dull spike of pain before Annabeth’s arm is there to loop around Piper’s waist and shield her from the hard object. It’s a subconscious move, she can tell by the way Annabeth’s shoulders suddenly tense a little, and since Piper’s still trying comprehend what’s just happened, the ache is easily overridden by the adrenaline.

In the end, Annabeth is the one who breaks the silence. “Shit—what the _hell_ ,” Annabeth all but _moans_ between kisses, fingers angrily tugging at Piper’s hair. “I fucking hate you.”

“Yeah? Good to know it’s mutual.” It comes out easier than expected.

“You’re drunk—” Annabeth says instead, visibly trembling against her mouth.

“—And you’re horny. Any more stupid observations, Wise Girl?”

Evidently, the answer is no because there is no more talking, no more words, just need and want  and a lot of pent up frustration rutting up against each other like animals and she’s not sure when exactly they tumbled out of the car on wobbly ankles and dizzy heads and into the apartment complex, but Piper finds herself unlocking the door to her flat while Annabeth stands a few paces behind her, so silent Piper has to look back to make sure she hasn’t run off yet, is still here with crossed arms and clouded, unreadable eyes and the faintest blush spread across the bridge of her nose like poetry, knowing exactly where this is going and choosing to _stay_.

It scares the shit out of Piper, to be honest.

Neither speak. Words are what ruined them, after all.

The door swings open. There is no moment or pause, no ice to break or strangers to meet all over again because Annabeth is her’s when she’s standing in Piper’s room like this, her every curve and dip and strain seas Piper has navigated before, routes she can recall better than the back of her own hand. Come here, she is saying to Annabeth with her eyes, come here, stay here, let me show you what Hell makes of a woman—and come she does. She free falls right back into Piper’s gravity, like body to grave. A willing sacrifice, and what is Piper supposed to make of that?

Then comes the realization.

They are fraught with so much hurt and hunger, and yet, what leaves them drowning is not hate, but love. Soul-scraping, bone-crushing, earth-shaking love strong enough to bury the gods.

x

Afterwards, they lie shoulder-to-shoulder like fallen soldiers and Piper is really starting to wish she’d thrown out that old clock from her mother. Every tick and tock reverberates off the walls, each one louder than the last as the tide recedes and she slowly comes down from the high. She can feel Annabeth to her left, just barely register the rise and fall of her chest, a heartbeat ahead of the clock. _Badum-tick, badum-tock, badum-tick._ Piper’s elbow is bent at an awkward angle and her legs are starting to fall asleep but she doesn’t dare move, doesn’t want to slide skin against bedsheets and crinkle the silence, because she knows Annabeth is just as awake as her, knows they’re locked in a stalemate and the moment somebody talks is the moment it all comes crumbling down. So they play dead. Piper keeps her eyes wide open, however, and stares at the glow-in-the-dark constellations on her ceiling. The ones she put up last Christmas. Half of her hopes Annabeth’ll slip out the door right now, convinced Piper’s asleep, leave nothing in the wake of disaster come sunrise, but there’s another minuscule part of that knows her heart’ll throw itself against her ribcage the minute Annabeth starts putting distance between the two of them and beg freedom to go with her, the damned traitor, leave her quipping a snide comment right before Annabeth walks out the door to reel her right back in the game.

“You added some new ones.”

Piper doesn’t look at her. Just stares at the stars even harder. She’s a fucking coward.

“I know you’re awake.” Her voice is quiet, a little frayed at the edges. Night has always made Annabeth softer.

“I wasn’t pretending to be asleep,” Piper replies immediately. She pauses. “The stars?”

A derisive snort, barely audible. “What else?”

“I did, yeah. Bought some smaller ones to fill out the space.” Piper doesn’t say where the spaces came from, and it sits in the air like dank expectation. The Big Dipper is where Annabeth’s Green Day poster used to be, Orion where an old architect blueprint used to be taped, rough pencil sketches of a homely two-story house for a rough pencil sketch future. She tries not to think too hard about it. “It was such a pain in the ass to get them up there.”

“I can imagine. Did you ask Jason for help?”

“Hell no.” She pauses, before the her mouth quirks up a little. “Do you remember the fairy lights? Where he—”

“—with his ankles?” 

_“Yes.”_

"But God, we were so disappointed when he made Percy delete the video."

The tense, frigid strain seems to crack a little above them, allowing air, and the space of Piper’s room…it’s almost peaceful. Not comfortable, but perhaps a reminiscent shard of it. It feels as if they’ve reached some sort of temporary truce. (Piper’s mind glibs over that word, _temporary_ , it’s such an ugly word. Such a _real_ word.) It’s soft and quiet and absent, and it’s…it’s the calmest Piper’s felt in a long, long time, she realizes with genuine surprise.

They’ve stopped talking now, each receded a little farther back into their heads, so Piper shifts on her side and ghosts over Annabeth’s arm with two fingers, made brave by memory. Annabeth doesn’t flinch, only moves her head to get a better look at Piper, gray eyes glowing underneath blonde lashes. She’s forgotten how easy it is to talk to a moon-soaked Annabeth, why she loved—loves—calling her so much on terrible nights. She is ambition and stress and coiled-up energy in daylight, brimming with new ideas and a tempo so fast Piper can barely sing along, but when it is just them, curled around one another like parentheses underneath glowing stars, everything slows down, softens at the edges. She stops looking to the future so much, and lets the past catch up.

Piper—Piper wants to save this. She wants to tuck away the warming feeling that begun to pool at the bottom of her stomach and pull it out whenever there are other terrible nights, just something to keep her company.

Which is exactly why she decides to ruin it.

“You found me,” she says. “You came for me.”

Annabeth visibly stiffens, shrinks away from Piper’s touch. “Piper,” she starts, windows flying shut and edges hardening.

“And you…fuck, Annabeth, you _stayed_ ,” and nothing, absolutely nothing can stop the way Piper’s voice snaps in two at this, because what do you do when she answers your call and kisses you back and _stays with you?_ How do you _not_ let that drag you back to square one?

“This was a mistake,” is all Annabeth says. “This—this was all a mistake.”

“Maybe you came out of obligation, sure, but don’t tell me you were obligated to—to—everything else,” Piper pushes, _pleads_.

“No, it wasn’t—God, Piper, no, it wasn’t _obligation_ , not any of it was—”

“Then _why_?” Piper asks, and no, it doesn’t come out like broken glass at all.

“Because you’re my fucking friend, Piper,” Annabeth snaps, sitting up, and suddenly, it’s like the fight just falls right out of her with the words as her shoulders curl into themselves like wilting flowers and her chin wobbles dangerously. “I mean. Just. You’re always going to be my friend. I’m not going to leave you drunk in a parking lot, Jesus _Christ_.”

Piper starts, pushing herself up, but Annabeth is already standing, grabbing her sweater and tossing it on. Even in the dim light of night, Piper can make out the bruises scattered across her hips and stomach. “The kiss—”

“—was  a mistake. Was a huge _fucking_ mistake, and I’m sorry, alright, but this isn’t going to ever happen again.”

It absolutely ruins Piper.

Before Annabeth can go any further, Piper reaches over and snags her wrist.  “I didn’t know I was hurting you,” she pleads, defends, demands, “All along, the entire time, you never said anything. You _never_ _say anything_. Do you realize how fucking unfair that is?”

She expects fire. She expects the blame to be tossed back. But Annabeth only _looks_ at Piper, and there is nothing but wet sadness in the lines that make her face. “I know, Pipes,” she mutters, impossibly soft. “And I’m sorry. I…I should go.”

Piper tightens her grip on Annabeth. “No. We…I can do better. I swear to God I can,” she begs, and it’s not even desperate, just weak and miserable, “I’ve learned so much, I’m _different_ now.”

“I am, too.” She twists free of Piper’s grip, and for a moment, it feels like her heart is going to sink right through the floor, but then Annabeth is sitting at the edge of the bed and shaking her head so, so sweetly. So gently. “And I know you can do better next time. I can, too. But Piper, I’m not…I can’t be your next time. We’re both different and better now, but who we are as people, our innermost core, is something we can’t change at will. Our core is our values and ethnics, our dreams and hopes and sometimes, if compromise becomes sacrifice, it’s just not meant to be. There is no middle ground if you’re oceans apart.”

“But I love you,” Piper says brokenly. It’s so childish, and it solves nothing, but it’s true. It’s so, so irrevocably true.

I _love_ you.

I love _you_.

She knows what it sounds like, even to her own ears. It sounds like somebody who won’t use past tense for the dead.

Annabeth only smiles, and it’s watered down and devastating, but it’s true, too. “And I you.”

x

The thing is, Piper _understands_ what Annabeth means.

She’d first kissed Annabeth at a Fourth of July fireworks show, with a blanket of stars twinkling above and the moon hanging low and bouncing light off of Annabeth’s eyes, making her softer, slower, easier to mold.

Even from the beginning, she’d loved Annabeth best at night. And who Annabeth was between those sunless hours wasn’t the person she wanted to be, but it was who she became, for Piper’s sake. A sounding board across telephone lines, an anchor to keep Piper from drowning in the suffocating dark, a warm body to curl into under thin sheets.

It was those things that Piper fell in love with.

And all the rest—her ambition, her drive, her sharp edges and slashing humor—everything that Annabeth prided herself in, defined herself as, were things Piper only tolerated. Things Annabeth couldn’t ever change.

Piper asks about it.

“It was the same for you,” Annabeth confirms.

Piper tries to find the pain, but there is only relief.

“I want to you use it on somebody else,” Annabeth tells her, “All the experiences and lessons learned. I want you to use the past to make a better future, even if I can’t be as big of a part in it. And I’ll do the same. Alright?”

No. Not alright. She can hardly imagine loving anybody but Annabeth, can barely tolerate the thought right now, but she thinks she can try. The ache is too strong for anything else to be noticed, but she kind of feels a little lighter, like a burden’s been lifted, almost, and the imprint that it leaves burns only to keep her warm.

Annabeth ends up staying the rest of the night, loose limbs tucked around Piper, chin on her head.

“How’d you find me? Never asked,” Piper mumbles at some point.

“I just used my context clues, I guess. You were talking to somebody.”

“Oh, Hazel.”

A silence.

“Was she cute?”

Why the fuck Annabeth just said that is beyond Piper.

“Um. I guess? Kind of, yeah.”

“Really,” Annabeth hums in reply, only a heartbeat late, and it’s amazing, because there are no ripples in her voice, no jealousy at all. It hurts a little, but Piper is surprised to find she’s mostly glad.

“But like, I’m not gonna date her or whatever. I’m not gonna date for a long time.” Piper pauses. “And what about those architect plans you’ve been working on? How’s it coming along?”

Annabeth is quiet for a moment, clearly taken aback, because when was the last time Piper active inquired about her _architect plans_ , really, but when she does speak, her voice is warm. “Pretty good. Everyone on my team knows not to touch me before I’ve had my coffee by now.”

“How many injuries did it take?”

“Ah, no comment.”

And it goes on, light, teasing, playful, _friendly_ banter flitting back and forth, steady and constant like a pulse. Sometimes there are delays and stutters, and no, the heartache hasn’t disappeared, it’s still there and it still fucking hurts like hell, but she can feel the shambles of their relationship mending, co-existing and work around one another in a way that leaves Piper certain things’ll be okay.

It’s been a long time since Annabeth was her best friend.

x

Morning washes over like a song, and Piper wakes up alone.

It hurts, obviously, and maybe she cries just a little, but she also understands that this is for the best.

The hangover isn’t as bad as she’d imagined, just an annoying throb at her temples and a bad taste in her mouth. She takes a warm shower and makes herself some toast, dresses in clothes fresh from the dryer. She doesn’t think about Annabeth.

As she’s folding up her pants from yesterday (having spent the night in a crumpled mess on the floor, it’s no surprise they look atrocious come morning), a crumpled piece of paper falls out from the back pocket, and as she bends down to pick it up, she instantly knows what it is, who it’s from.

Piper smooths out the receipt, traces the neat little numbers with her eyes.

She wasn’t lying when she said she had no plans of dating anybody for a long time. But Hazel’s just really, really nice. Lovely, even. And Annabeth, God, she’ll love Annabeth for the rest of her life, but Piper’s slowly learning how to make room in her heart for more than one person, and no, she’s not ready for anybody to fill up the spaces Annabeth left just yet, but she thinks Hazel deserves to know Piper made it home safely, at the very least.

So when Hazel picks up with a pleasant, “Hello?” Piper only smiles.

Her head’s leaned against the window, her curtains twisted absentmindedly around her fingers. And her eyes are wide open.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblrrrrr](http://www.aphrcdeity.tumblr.com)


End file.
